Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Obama Approval/2010 Vote Correlation

We'll start rolling our Maine poll out tomorrow and even there a majority of likely voters for this fall disapprove of Barack Obama.

How big of a problem is Obama's unpopularity for Democratic candidates? We're finding that almost no one who disapproves of the President is planning to vote Democratic for key offices this year. And obviously if you're in a state where the Obama disapprovers make the majority, that makes it virtually impossible for you to win if you can't pick up some of those folks.

Here are the numbers on how Democratic candidates are doing with voters who disapprove of Obama in key races we've polled over the last months:

Candidate

Office

% from Obama Disapprovers

Alex Sink

Florida Governor

14%

Dan Onorato

Pennsylvania Governor

11%

Lee Fisher

Ohio Senate

9%

Charlie Melancon

Louisiana Senate

9%

Joe Sestak

Pennsylvania Senate

8%

Ethan Berkowitz

Alaska Governor

8%

Scott McAdams

Alaska Senate

7%

Elaine Marshall

North Carolina Senate

6%

Alexi Giannoulias

Illinois Senate

6%

Robin Carnahan

Missouri Senate

6%

Ted Strickland

Ohio Governor

6%

Pat Quinn

Illinois Governor

4%

Kendrick Meek

Florida Senate

1%

Sink's 14% is largely the product of a fracturing Republican primary, and we'll see if those numbers hold true as that gets to be more and more in the rear view mirror. Onorato's ability to win over more folks who don't like Obama than most Democratic candidates may be an indication that he's the right candidate running in the wrong cycle.

For the most part though we're finding that Democratic candidates are doing only as well as the President's approval numbers. And with a majority of voters disapproving of Obama in most states that's a really, really big problem for the party this fall.

Onorato can do well with voters who disapprove of Obama because he constantly touts his record of cutting "waste and inefficiencies" in government "saving millions", "balanced the budgets six years in a row without once raising property taxes", reformed government by hiring professional managers and combating patronage and cronyism, eliminating county offices (held by Democrats), so government "works for us".

Notice how his issues sound like those of a Tea Party candidate. If his ad didn't say "the Democrat" in the final seconds, you would think Onorato was a Tea Party favorite. Once again, Democrats need to become more like the Tea Party to be electable.

An anti-tax, pro-growth record is critical for Democrats to separate themselves from the tax-and-spend leftists in Washington. Democrats must make themselves sound like Tea Party candidates in order to sound mainstream. Governor-candidates will be more able to do this than congressmen or senators.

Maine has multiple candidates. Five are on the ballot and three are polling (in Rasmussen's polls) at 15%+.

It's also a state which has elected two independent Governors and, because of the many candidates running for governor many years, the winner often gets less than a majority of the vote. In the last governor's election, the winner got under 40% of the vote.

So the Obama-disapprovers could end up splitting their vote, allowing the Obama-approvers to join together in voting for Mitchell.

Also, Maine allows people to register the vote on the day of the election. So this could be a factor, too, enabling people now not classified as likely voters to vote.